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肥胖是全球最大的健康问题之一，逐步恶化。事实上，一般成年人人口每十年获得〜1.5公斤，如果这一趋势继续，global obesity prevalence is estimated to reach ~20% by 2025。

肥胖是全球最大的健康问题之一，全球肥胖普遍估计到2025年达到约20％

This epidemic has generated a lot of scientific interest in many disciplines including genetics, within which the Fat Mass and Obesity Associated (FTO) gene is the most investigated gene in obesity science because of its prevailing association with excess body mass, fat mass and BMI in clinical populations. The minor ‘risk’ version (A allele) of the gene is associated with elevations in parameters related to obesity (cardiovascular disease, higher BMI and body fat, etc.) and the more common version (T allele) is protective against these obesity-related health problems. Currently, we do not fully understand the mechanism behind the FTO association with these differences in obesity-related parameters, but it is likely that there are FTO-related inter-individual differences in appetite, dietary energy intake and thus greater accumulation of body fat. But what if there was something else happening in metabolically active tissues?

致力于将FTO基因和肌肉特征研究健康个体或具有特别高的生理功能，例如精英运动员，这可能为这种肥胖相关的基因提供新的洞察力。这就是我们在我们的BMC遗传学文章。

我们首先测量了肌肉表型，包括瘦肿块，在120名健康男性中，发现肥胖 - 保护性T等位基因与更大的全身，臂和腿部瘦肿块有关。该观察结果对肌肉植物和其他肌肉浪费障碍等条件有影响，并且应该针对可能的遗传易感性或对这些条件的抵抗来研究。

FTO后与精益质量,实效izing a case-control study design, we investigated if FTO variation differed between elite rugby playing positions, specifically those where lean mass relative to total body mass is vital for elite success. As such, in a group of 530 elite rugby athletes and 566 controls (the RugbyGene project), our results show that indeed those elite athletes most reliant on lean mass relative to body mass (centers and back 3 players) have a greater frequency of the protective FTO T allele. In fact, those rugby union athletes with the ‘protective’ version of FTO have more than three times the odds of being a center or back 3 player than any other playing position. Furthermore, the risk A allele (associated with greater body mass) showed the highest frequency in those athletes that require greater body mass to achieve elite rugby status (forwards).

当我们评估77个精英橄榄球运动员的子集中的低体最大功率输出时，进一步支持这些结果，其中中心和后3名具有最大的相对（校正的全体质量）功率输出的主力。总的来说，这些结果表明了产生瘦物质的固有能力的重要性（为了产生功率），并且对更高体重的更大的遗传易感性对于精英橄榄球联盟前进是有利的。

我们有以前报道过that another genetic variant associated with muscle performance (the ACTN3 gene) also differs in allele frequency between elite rugby playing positions. Together with our currentBMC遗传学paper, it is becoming clear that genetics plays a key role in elite rugby. As the RugbyGene project continues we expect to identify many more genetic variants that are important to rugby performance, physiology and injury risk, through both case-control and phenotype-association approaches.